


Love, A Paper for Magical Law and Ethics ... by Todd

by machtaholic (cinderella81)



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Love, M/M, Young Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 23:07:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20496854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinderella81/pseuds/machtaholic
Summary: Todd uses his friends at Brakebills to describe the eight kinds of love for his Magical Law and Ethics class.





	Love, A Paper for Magical Law and Ethics ... by Todd

**Author's Note:**

> Let's pretend some things went differently after season 3 into season 4, okay?

Todd [Redacted]

Professor Van der Weghe

Magical Law and Ethics

**Love**

Okay, so at first I didn’t get why we needed to know about the different kinds of love for Magical Law and Ethics, but I kind of get it now.

I think.

This is supposed to help us recognize if we’re helping someone out for the right reasons, right? To make sure we’re not helping some maniac get their obsession as a creepy plaything? Right?

Anyway, the only way I could make sense of all these different kinds of love was to think about people I know who experienced these. And since I know this paper isn’t going to get spread around campus, it’s totally okay, right? Right?

So there are eight (8) kinds of love according to the Greeks. Agape, Eros, Philia, Philautia, Storge, Pragma, Ludus and Mania.

So, Mania is like the worst because it is super obsessive love. It usually leads to madness, jealousy or even anger. What’s super sad is that many people who experience this suffer from, like, super low self esteem. I heard from my friends about a student who used to go here who got like, super obsessed with one of the professors here. She tried all these things and it went super downhill and one of her friends Niffin’d out trying to fix her mess. Anyway, she totally left here and went into the city but she’s still super obsessed with the professor. I heard that she sometimes uses this spell on magic dudes she comes across so she can pretend she’s doing it with her professor dude.

Totally mania.

Philautia is called self-love. No, not like that. At least I don’t think so. Most of us associate it with being, like, totally stuck up and narcissistic. But the ancient Greeks totally didn’t mean it that way. But self love is totally necessary - you can’t give to others what you don’t have. And if you can’t love yourself, how the hell are you gonna love anyone else? (Can I get an amen?)

Anyway, the best example I can think of for Philautia is Margo Hanson. She is the most confident person I have ever met (well she and Eliot Waugh are tied) and because she loves herself so much, she totally spreads that love to others.

She tries to play it off, but she is super kind to all the people she cares about. I’ve seen her hold Quentin Coldwater’s hair back when he’s hungover and puking, which not everyone would do. I would, but not everyone would.

Margo Hanson is totally Philautia.

Eros is romantic love, named after the Greek god of love and fertility - it’s an expression of sexual passion and desire.

Kady and Penny are totally the epitome of Eros. I swear I think the school might burn down with how much desire was between them - you could see them looking at each other during class and knew the second they had a free moment they’d be going to find a place to bang.

The Greeks were totally freaked out by Eros, which is weird. They thought that because human beings have an impulse to make babies, that this love was so powerful and they’d lose control. I don’t know what that means, really - fuck themselves to death? Make way too many babies? I don’t know.

Anyway, it’s still the kind of love associated with passionate, sexual love - which is totally Kady and Penny. People nowadays still believe that Eros love burns hot and bright but burns out fast. Personally, I think Kady and Penny’s relationship was moving past Eros into something else, but then Penny died, which is a bummer. We got another Penny, but he’s from a different timeline and apparently has a thing for Julia? So it’s super weird.

But Kady and Penny (the old Penny) were totally the epitome of Eros.

Ludus is like, the feeling of infatuation in the early days of love. It’s known as the ‘playful love’. Like, when you get butterflies in your stomach when you see your significant other walk through the door, the feeling of always wanting to be with them. But not, like, the mania where you’re obsessed with them always being nearby.

So, recently two people got together who I never would have pictured before. Margo Hanson and Josh Hoberman. Weird, right? Like, doesn’t seem to fit? But it’s kinda cute.

I look at the two of them, and they’re totally Ludus. It’s new love, it’s like puppy love? I guess? 

There are studies that show that when people are experiencing Ludus, their brain acts much like it does on cocaine. Like, the brain is lit up and active just like someone who is literally high on a drug. It makes people feel alive and excited about life. Which, given how loud Margo and Josh have gotten during … well … yeah. Makes sense.

Agape is unconditional love. Some people describe this as spiritual love and use Jesus as an example? Because he was super selfless and sacrificed himself so people could be without sin? Or something like that? I’m not sure, really.

I guess I could kind of equate that kind of selfless love with Alice Quinn. The whole group of them ended up in Fillory, which is real. Totally crazy, right? Anyway, when they were there, they had to battle this Beast, which was actually one of the Chatwins! So weird! Anyway, they were battling the Beast and like, losing really bad. Quentin got hurt super bad (ended up with a wooden shoulder! Wicked right?), but then Alice stepped in and totally kicked ass. She kept doing spell after spell after spell and … well, she totally Niffin’d out. But, she did it to save all her friends, which I guess really counts.

Right?

I have a lot of friends, but I think the best example of Philia is Quentin and his best friend Julia Wicker. Philia is affectionate love, the kind of love you feel for your friends. And Julia and Quentin, they’ve been friends, like, forever. The ancient Greeks thought this kind of love was better than Eros, because it represented love between people who considered themselves equals.

Some dude named Plato argued that physical attraction wasn’t necessary for love, which is why there are so many different kinds. Philia is often referred to as platonic love, which means a love without sex. 

And I can totally see it when I look at Julia and Quentin. They’ve clearly been friends for a long time. There’s this thing they do where they can have a full conversation without saying anything! It’s totally amazing. I mean, I’m sure Margo and Eliot could do that too, they just choose to talk. Loudly sometimes.

No, Quentin and Julia totally have the Philia thing down.

And, um, I’m going to kind of combine the last two types of love together, because they kind of go together, in a weird way.

So, we all know magic got turned off, right? Right. Anyway, a bunch of Brakebills students went on quests in order to get these keys so that they could get magic turned back on. One of the quests sent two of them back to Fillory, but back in time. Like, more than one hundred years back in time.

Weird, right?

They ended up at some kind of Mosaic that had to be completed to show the beauty of all life before they could get the key they needed. Vague and completely unhelpful. They thought they would only be there a little bit, but Quentin and Eliot built a life there at the Mosaic. At first it was just the two of them, but then they met the girl Arielle and she and Quentin apparently got on very well and … well, they totally had a kid!

The things you learn when you eavesdrop, right?

Anyway, Arielle had a son named Theodore Rupert (Teddy for short) and, well the love between Arielle and Teddy, that mother-son love is totally Storge. Right? Storge, parent-child love, is like Philia, in that there’s not any kind of physical or sexual attraction, but there is a strong bond. And a mother-son relationship is like, a super strong bond.

But, Arielle passed away, which is like a huge bummer. Quentin and Eliot stayed on at the Mosaic and raised Teddy together and, like totally fell deeply in love. Now, there had always been something between the two of them, a kind of spark. But when they were there at the Mosaic, it changed and became like, a deep love.

Pragma. 

The ancient Greeks described Pragma as enduring love, a love that has matured and developed over a long period of time. Fifty years is a long period of time, yo.

Anyway, I can totally see it in them, even though they came back to the present with whatever happened before seemingly erased. But they clearly remember it. You know those old married couples who have been together forever and still hold hands when they walk down the street together? Yeah, that’s totally Quentin and Eliot. I sometimes see them sitting in the Physical Kids cottage on the couch in front of the first. Quentin will lay there with his head in Eliot’s lap and Eliot will just stroke his hair. They don’t say anything, they’re just comfortable in the silence together.

Pragma is the rarest of love to fine, especially these days. People think the grass is always greener and they don’t seem to have the patience to watch their love grow. 

But I look at Quentin and Eliot and the way they are to each other and … there’s an ease between them that speaks to years of making it work. Of compromising, of putting equal effort in to making the other person happy. And clearly they’ve been at it for a long time, because the way they are now is just … effortless.

Researching all these different kinds of love has really helped me both get to know my friends and get to know myself.

I want to find the Quentin to my Eliot … or the Eliot to my Quentin? 

I want to find my own Pragma love. 


End file.
